still kickin’

album perfection

Ah yes, another twitter conversation turned into a blog post. This time, it’s perfect albums.

@weselec asked: having posed this question before with good results: can anyone recommend a great end-to-end awesome album? Genre is of little consequence.

I threw out a whole bunch of album titles to him but thinking about it now, I would probably take a few back. Perfect end-to-end means not skipping any songs. It means every song fits snugly with the song before it and the song after it and it all just flows like some magical musical journey.

When defined like that, you can probably eliminate some of the choices that pop into your head at first. What I was left with after much soul searching:

Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to ParalyzeAs a huge QOTSA fan, it would be easy for me to just list their entire catalog and move on from this question. But even my most favorite bands have songs I don’t like. But this album (which is probably the least favorite of most of the QOTSA fans I know) is perfection through and through. It opens with Mark Lanegan’s creepy yet mesmerizing voice on This Lullaby and careens through a slew of musical styles until it ends with Josh Homme’s melancholy voice on Long, Slow Goodbye.

In between you have Billy Gibbons playing some killer riffs on Burn the Witch (which also includes Jack Black hand claps), a pop-perfect tune with In My Head, and the awesome Broken Box, a dancebale, ass-shaking, hand clapping song with bitter, fuck you lyrics.

Brand New: Devil and God Are Raging Inside MeThis album is dark and morose, but not in a “woe is me, my life is a black hole” kind of way; it’s the themes visited here, the allegories and the context that give this album the maturity and depth I find missing from so many bands today.

From the Rudyard Kiping references on Sowing Season, to the biblical connotations of Millstone, Devil and God is filled with lyrics that make you think, make you feel and make you want to know more about the world around the songs. This album plays like a disjointed novel, like reading someone’s deepest thoughts but not being able to reach the core of those thoughts. This is a good thing. The songs leave you thinking, wondering and asking yourself a lot of questions.

Devil and God is not an album to party to, it’s not a record to throw on when you’re looking to perk your day up. It’s one that pulls you into its world and holds you there, sometimes against your will. If you think of music as food for thought, Devil and God is a veritable buffet.

Black Flag – DamagedAll the frat boys I knew bought this album on the basis of TV Party Tonight and, to a lesser extent, Six Pack. “Party band! Party music!” That god damn song. It was like I had to constantly grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say “Did you not listen to the rest of the album??” But it was like talking to a tree stump. A drunk, horny tree stump who only cared about partying.

The only way I listened to this album was by myself, in my room, those gigantic early 80’s era headphones on, lights out. I wanted no one else around as I contemplated life as an aimless 19 year old. This album made me itchy, restless and angsty. And then it would take a wide turn on my emotions and make me feel apathetic, despondent, hopeless. I might as well just stay here in bed and get stoned and sleep and not care about anything to jesus christ, I gotta get out of this room, out of this house and do something, anything, like go light myself on fire in front of the White House or maybe just go kick a cat or something, but I gotta move. And then I’d close my eyes and sink back into the music again. And it went on like that. I’d get all the way up to No More and wait for the build up of the drum, that slow steady beat that got faster and faster and I’d think that whole 40 seconds or so from the first beat right up until Rollins kicks in is a microcosm of the album, of my life up until that point and I’d suddenly be yelling I need action, won’t take no more, no more, no more, no more and I’d be ready to get up and buy some kerosene or find a stray cat but then Padded Cell and Life of Pain would come and I’d pull the covers over my head and think, shit. Maybe listening to TV Party Tonight in a room full of drunk frat boys isn’t such a bad thing after all.

And then I’d move the needle back to Rise Above and put that thought out of my head real quick.

Supersuckers – Evil Powers of Rock and Roll

If anyone ever tells you rock is dead, just sit them down and make them listen to Evil Powers of Rock and Roll. This is the kind of music that makes you believe there is life after nu-metal and emo and boy bands, that there is no such thing as the day the music died, that the negative aura left by every niche and novelty rock band out there can’t kill rock and roll because as long as the Supersuckers exist, rock and roll will still be around to kick ass and take names.

This is the kind of album playing in the background of a heated poker game where large, mustached men in denim vests and ten gallon hats drink moonshine and accuse each other of cheating and occasionally pull out a six shooter to make a point.

It’s a Saturday night driving up and down the main highway in town, half of it spent giving the finger to people who have nicer cars than you, the other half spent throwing empty Budweiser cans out the window and yelling drunken obscenities at the girls lingering in the Burger King parking lot.

It’s music that belongs on a half warped cassette tape that you shove into the tape deck of your 20 year old car and you sing out loud along with it as your car backfires almost in time to the songs.

It reminds you at once of the lights of Vegas, of dirt roads, of Satan and deserts and bar fights and motorcycles. It’s rock and roll, Texas style. And it’s one of the best damn albums ever put down on vinyl.

Faith No More – Album of the YearOnce upon a time, I would have said Angel Dust instead. But over the years, the aggressiveness and simmering anger of Angel Dust gave way to the more low-key, melodic feelings of AotY.

If there’s one thing to be said for FNM, it’s that their style was consistently inconsistent. Every album has a different texture, a different flavor. This one is, I think, their most mature, lyrically and musically, and the one where Patton’s penchant for lounge singing came into full effect (interestingly enough, the band hated this album). It’s beautiful music, a little sorrowful, a lot melancholy and includes my very favorite FNM song, Helpless.

The Who, Tommy

The first record I ever owned may or may not have been one that was cut from the back of a cereal box and played on my Fisher Price record player.

But the first record with which I fell in love was neither a cereal jingle, nor even a children’s album at all. When I was nine years old, I fell hard in love with The Who’s Tommy.

The album itself belonged to an older cousin. I remember pulling the record out of its sleeve and my cousin showing me how to properly handle a record album. As he placed my hands around the edge of the record and explained about fingerprints and dust and grooves, I read the titles. I asked him – what does “Overture” mean?

My cousin showed me how to drop the record on the turntable. Until then, I had been using the Fisher Price system and was a bit haphazard about how I handled my cardboard records. He was almost reverent about it, holding the edges with his palm, placing the album gently on the turntable, dropping the needle on the groove by hand because he didn’t trust the automatic arm to do it right.

He turned the volume up. The unmistakable crackle and hiss of needle upon vinyl filled the room.

We listened to the overture and he explained that each time the music changed, it was a piece of another song on the album. As the overture ended and “It’s a Boy” came on, my cousin’s friends appeared outside and my music lesson abruptly ended. I asked him to leave the record and he did.

So I sat on our overstuffed living room couch that afternoon and listened to Tommy in its entirety. When the first side ended, I grabbed the vinyl with my palms, just like he showed me. I felt so much older than my eight years as I flipped the record over and gently laid the needle down. No more cereal jingles for me. No more Banana Splits or whatever cartoon music I had been listening to before then. I had discovered a new world.

This was the first album I fell in love with and thus, its perfection is timeless.

Turbonegro – Apocalypse Dudes

So you’re having a party. It’s going to be the kind of party where there’s so many people, they won’t fit into backyard and they will spill over into your living room and kitchen, maybe even the front yard. There will be things going on the bedroom that you only hear about in whispered rumors weeks later. There will be shattered glass, vomit on the bathroom floor, overturned chairs, tire tracks on your lawn, a turd floating in your pool and several wall holes that will need spackling. At some point there will be the sound of sirens wailing through your neighborhood. The neighbors will complain about the loud, offensive music, the foul-mouthed kids stealing their lawn jockeys, the near-comatose girl on their patio and the car parked on their rhododendrons. Someone will ride a bicycle through your house. Someone will attempt to jump from the second story bedroom window into your pool, and probably miss. The next door neighbor’s 12 year old son will sneak into the party and develop a new vocabulary as well as a drug habit. Your dog will get stoned. There will be a court appearance in your future.

Apocalypse Dudes is the only music selection you need for this party. Play it start to finish over and over.

Von Bondies, Pawn Shoppe Heart

We picked up Pawn Shoppe Heart by the Von Bondies at Amoeba Music in San Francisco on the recommendation of Todd’s friend Nelson. I’d heard of them, but wasn’t sure if I heard anything by them, and we needed something to make tooling around in our rented Ford Escort seem…cooler. While there is definitely more choice in rock radio in California (and I did hear the Circle Jerks on the radio while there, that was a shock), after a while it all blended into the same New York sound of radio puking up the same sound it was chewing on in 1976. Stairway to Heaven? I don’t think so.

We ended up listening to nothing but this CD for the rest of our time in the car, and I’ve been listening to it since I got home. It’s one of those rare CDs I can listen to from start to finish and not get the urge to skip any songs. Not even C’mon, C’mon, which, when it played for the first time, I realized I had heard about 7,000 times (it was only later I found out it’s the theme song to Rescue Me, which I’ve never watched).

If I had to describe this album to someone who never heard it before, I would say – imagine if Danzig and Sleater Kinney morphed into one band. Well, that was my first reaction. At times, like on the bluesy, crooning Maireed, wthey remind me of the Doors, if Jim Morrison had soul, and there are times, most noticeably on Tell Me What You See, when I hear MC5. It’s a bit garage punk, a bit punk, a lot of blues and pure rock and roll. I love that they switch between male and female singing; it makes the album feel continuously fresh, no matter how many times you play it.

And that’s it. There are more. Probably a lot more. There’s Nine Inch Nails and Weezer and possibly Pantera and yea, a lot more. But that’s enough from me. I want to hear from you.

If I were to take up weselec on no genre restriction and go off the straight rock genre into instrumental post rock, Explosions in the Sky, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place would qualify. Love it, everything flows from the thinnest opening notes to the emotional finish, and I can’t listen to it on shuffle because it disrupts planned transitions.

I’d pretty much agree on Phair’s Exile in Guyville as well, although I can slice and dice that album on shuffle without too much trouble.

My perfect albums also happen to fall under the Guilty Pleasure category of a couple days ago:

INXS – Switch. I know, it’s not the original group, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Pearl Jam – Ten. This was one of the first CDs I ever bought with my own money because our Santa didn’t believe it was good for my eternal soul.

Encomium. It’s actually covers of Led Zepplin songs by Henry Rollins, Sheryl Crow, Hootie and the Blowfish, and a bunch of other people that varied. My ex broke this cd during a fight in which he told me this wasn’t real music and I told him they weren’t real orgasms either.

The Clash – London Calling. I remember breaking the seal on the plastic and then listening to it, nonstop, for about 41 weeks straights. The songs still get heavy play today at the house / on the iPod, but who listens to whole albums anymore?

Eric Clapton – Slowhand. I would guess that most folks get caught up in the first couple of songs, but the album is perfect all the way through.

Social Distortion – Social Distortion. Perfect for road trips, too.

And I’d add Hot Rocks, by the Stones, but I don’t think it qualifies as an album.

Songs like “Ain’t No Cure for Love,” the wryly titled “I’m Your Man” and, most explicitly, “Everybody Knows” (“Everybody knows that the Plague is coming/Everybody knows that it’s moving fast/Everybody knows that the naked man and woman – just a shining artifact of the past”) reflect anxieties generated by the AIDS crisis.

Although the 60s-era counterculture embraced him as a kind of radical existential warrior Cohen’s made it clear that he views the social disruption that’s characterized the last several decades as a collective psychic catastrophe. In 1992 Cohen went up a mountain to live a monk’s life for ten years, then came down to live in LA.

Most of my picks have been mentioned already, but I’d like to add Bad Moon Rising by Sonic Youth. It’s basically a 38 minute song divided into 8 tracks (minus the cd bonus tracks, that is) and the dark and autumnal mood is perfect for this time of year. It might also have my all-time favorite album cover.

Your music posts always leave me feeling like an old fogie. I don’t know any of these bands. So I’ll throw in a real ringer:

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

He accomplishes the impossible. Takes something that is unimprovable perfection, Shakespeare’s play, and transforms it to a different medium, with every bit the same perfection. I’m betting such a feat has never been done before or since.

I really need to give this one more thought, but off the top of my head, I’d agree with Pearl Jam’s Ten. I’d also say NIN’s The Downward Spiral and Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes. Yes, I even listen to “Leather” when I listen to that album in its entirety.